tim carnahan...2020/05/21 · weekly newsletter of the mighty rotary club of west sacramento volume...

Chips from the Buzzsaw

Weekly Newsletter of the Mighty

Rotary Club of West Sacramento

Volume 71, No. 34

May 21, 2020

Club 558 of District 5180

PO Box 288 West Sacramento, CA

95691

Meets Every Friday at Club Pheasant, 12:15

It is with a very heavy heart that I write this special edition of Chips. Our Rotary brother and friend, Tim Carnahan, passed away on May 12

th. Tim

was one of the Mighty Club’s pillars. He was a constant presence in our meetings with his quick wit, permanent smile and eternal flow of conversation and he will be terribly missed.

Tim served as our Club President in 2003-2004. His theme was The Rotary Zone- based on the old classic TV show, The Twilight Zone. Tim had a very unique sense of humor and wasn’t afraid to use it. The “Rotary Zone” was a perfect platform for Tim to be himself while leading the Mighty Club to a very successful year as President. In fact, he helped create the themes and a logo to match those themes for easily ten of our Club Presidents. He was extremely creative, always coming from a slightly different angle than most human beings, which is one of the characteristics that made Tim special.

Tim served as the bulletin editor for several years- winning the Best Bulletin Editor in the District multiple times. He had a gift with writing and those of us who were lucky enough to have him as our bulletin editor were the beneficiaries. As President Peter Anderson recently shared, Tim’s advice to new bulletin editors, including Peter and myself, was to “never let the truth get in the way of a good story”- advice that your current editor follows religiously. (continued on page 2)

Rotary

Happens

Making Dreams Real

Tim Carnahan

CHIPS FROM THE BUZZSAW | Volume 71, Issue 34

Rotary Happens, Making Dreams Real

(continued from page 1)

Tim recently began writing articles for the Chips about members of our Club that he wanted to get to know better and that he wanted the rest of us to get to know better. He genuinely liked people and really enjoyed the interviews. What ended up on paper was that unique blend between his Twilight Zone and the truth, always en-tertaining and well written. He served as our official-unofficial his-torian and knew more about our Club and the individual members than anyone else on the planet. Why? Because he loved our Club and was genuinely interested in our history and the members who created that history. He had a great memory for these details and many of us regularly tapped into his gift when an historical fact was needed.

Tim was also our official Club Chaplain, taking over from Ira Clark when Ira left the club. Tim was never at a loss for words when a moment needed a prayer, a thought for the day or a

quick one-liner that would instantly have the Club in stitches. I’m not sure anyone else noticed this other than the editor and his father, who always snickered when the speaker would ask if an-yone had any questions because, 99.9% of the time, Tim asked the first question. I believe Tim either was ready with a question or instantly came up with one on the fly, partly because he was

interested in the subject, but mostly because he wanted the speaker to feel like WE were interested in the subject. Tim had a great heart. He loved God, and he loved the Mighty Rotary Club of West Sacramento.



What do we really know about …

An investigative report from CHIPS club reporter, Tim Carnahan

Turns out we’ve learned quite a bit about Amy Busch since she joined in January of 2017. She addressed our club awhile back about her pretty traumatic upbringing … home-less, parents in and out of jail – you get the picture. Along the way she was impacted by various people who helped her get through all that. In fact during last Friday’s CHIPS ex-clusive interview, Amy revealed that those are the very people who inspired her to become

a volunteer herself. If she could be like them she could help others. She spoke of that journey and in-dicated volunteerism helped her past some of her most depressing times. (Ultimately, the perfect solution - join Rotary!)

Nominated by Quirina Orozco, Amy had jumped into Rotary with both feet. Of course as Club Secretary you see her each week as she greets us at the meeting room entrance along with our Club Treas-urer, Dusty Dumars. Those are two jobs that require lots of hours, for little recog-nition.

Hopefully you already knew she’s also giving back through “Caring for Yolo’s

Youth” (you remember, the loaded backpacks for foster and at risk kids).

But now for the juicy and current stuff: Did you know that Amy owns a horse? (If not you heard it here first). In fact she revealed that it is her goal to become a competitive roper! Maybe become the first person in the history of our club to have the classification: Roper!

Amy also does very well in other competitive fields. For example, she is very accomplished in the art of roping a husband through softball. Yes that’s where Amy

and Neil met.

Nothing like a happy ending to ruin an expose’.

Amy Busch




An investigative report from CHIPS club reporter, Tim Carnahan

First, let’s get the well-known stuff out of the way. Here’s what probably most of us already know about Barry Kalar:

• Has been a member of Rotary clubs in Willits, Moraga, and West Sacramento.

• Barry is celebrating 35 years in Rotary this month!

• Former Chief of Police of the City of West Sacramento.

• Former Chief of Police of the City of Moraga

• Past President of the Rotary Club of Moraga

• Participated in 2 Rotoplast mission in India. (In fact during our interview, Barry pointed to those two experi-ences as his most passionate and rewarding moments in Rotary.)

• Key player in several other international projects involving wheelchairs, water and fighting disease.

• Nicknamed ‘Faster Than a Speeding Bullet’ while playing both outfield and infield for our Rotary softball team

• District Governor of Rotary District 5180 for the year 2009-10 – our club’s first and only member to rise to the rank of District Governor

• Black Belt - Jujitsu

• Fair to middling bowler.

• Currently an Adjunct Professor at Los Rios Community College District.

• Barry is our current Rotary International Foundation Chairperson

• And on and on it goes. (Yawn) you get the idea … basically a do-gooder on ster-oids.

What you might not know is that Barry does have a darker flip-side. It was during our exclusive CHIPS inter-view that Barry confessed that he has been jailed … for speeding (he claims) while a young man in the Marine Corp. Perhaps that influenced Barry’s eventual career guaranteeing a place on the other side of the prison bars. So now you know the truth. Proceed with caution.

Reply to request to ‘correct’ previously published CHIPS interview:

It has pretty much always been the position of this esteemed publication to never alter, correct or re-scind a previously published story. Dennis Clark stated it so eloquently when he was Editor of CHIPS: “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story”.

Therefore, we were not impressed by Amy Busch’s request that since she is not in “Caring for Yolo’s Youth” as this reporter had claimed in last week’s issue, that we should feel obligated to print a correc-tion. Sorry, Amy. Please see the Dennis Clark quote in the previous paragraph.

Barry Kalar




An investigative report from CHIPS cub reporter, Tim Carnahan

Tim joined our club about 14 months ago and was nominated by another member with the initials T.K., Tim Kwong. Of course we knew we were going to have to dig further to find out the good stuff about Tim. Well, there’s plenty, and your CHIPS investigative staff has done the digging so you don’t have to.

Tim and his spouse, Julie live right here in West Sacramento! He is an attorney of-counsel at the Law Office of Brian H. Turner. That fact alone helped us determine that Tim is a lawyer. But he hasn’t always practiced here. Apparently he previously worked for 32 years for a guy with the exact same name - at The Law Offices of Timothy H. Kuzelka. (Frustratingly, CHIPS was unable to determine the exact relationship between the two). His almost 40 years of legal experience was something we weren’t going to mention to protect his image as a young man. But … what the heck.

Our CHIPS exclusive interview revealed that he previously belonged to a different club, The Rotary Club of San Carlos, Mexico (approx. 2005-2012). He states that he joined “to become a giver” and it seems he has been doing quite a bit of that. Incidentally, he already has a Paul Harris Fellowship, which he probably earned in Mexico (as opposed to buying one on EBay).

While south of the border he participated in the International Business Ex-change Program and directed the Youth Scholarship Program in Sonora, Mex-ico. He also served as President of the Sonora Chamber of Commerce.

In fact some of his most rewarding experiences happened while there. Get this - he helped rescue a whale caught in a long-line net. (Maybe ‘Whale Res-cuer’ could be a valid classification? Its gotta be better than ‘lawyer’). Tim also participated in a Doctors Without Borders project, bringing medicine and optometrists deep into Mexico. No wonder International Service is the area in Rotary in which he is most passionate.

Tim’s background is too extensive to write about here. But we did learn that he has been flying air-planes since he was 15, is an accomplished swimmer and snow skier, and a working proficiency in Spanish.

Tim is already involved in our international water project, and this reporter has personally delivered Meals on Wheels with him. Whew! That’s all really cool. But what would you expect from someone named ‘Tim’.

Tim Kuzelka





Let’s get some things cleared up right up front. Denice Domke = Denice Seals! Our first clue was the unique spelling of both of their first names, ‘Denice’. But there were other clues.

Our records indicate that Denice Seals, an Administrator at River Bend Medical Associates, was nominated by Ron Chambers and installed in our club in Feb., 2003 by then president Bob Collins. Den-ice quickly immersed herself in Rotary and subsequently became our club’s first lady president (2006-07)!

Now we have Denice Domke, CEO of the West Sacramento Chamber of Commerce, and most recently host of our club’s first pop-up meeting and upcoming Fireside Chat. This Denice also lists the same nominator and date of membership. Case solved! She/they is/are the same person/people!

To her credit, during our exclusive CHIPS interview, Denice did confess to being both people. She also revealed that she always want-ed to join and was raised by service minded people - her mother and sister were both Rotarians. Before joining, she had been to some of our meetings, and was even our guest speaker until finally Ron Chambers invited her to join. “I would have joined earlier if only someone had asked,” she added.

Denice’s main area of emphasis in Rotary is through Internation-al Service. She is a Paul Harris Society member and supports our international projects with both time and money. In fact, it was through Denice that we had one of our club’s most successful and memorable international projects: “Operation Shoebox”. She con-firmed that to this day it is perhaps the most gratifying project she has experienced in Rotary. It is a story worth repeating.

It was during Andy Wallace’s presidency, 2004-05. A high school friend of Denice sent her a message about his son, who was serving in Iraq. A photo of him fighting in Fallujah was published in the Sacramento Bee along with a story that indicated that some American soldiers may have died. Denice’s friend had no way to know if his son was OK. Not really knowing what to do, he reached out to friends, including Denice, to perhaps put together and send some “care packages” to his son’s platoon, with hopes and prayers that he not died and the packages would reach him.

Denice brought the plea to our club to see if others would join in. That next Friday our members brought in 80 packages, filled and ready to send and “Operation Shoebox” was born. The Sacramento Bee got wind of our project and came to that meeting, took a photo and did a story. Andy announced that his offices would be available for a few extra days for drop offs if anyone from the community wanted to join in. When the dust cleared there were over 200 packages ready to ship overseas. Another miracle got them shipped to the right place expeditiously.

Turns out the soldier in question made it out OK. Upon return to the USA he visited our club to present us with a US flag, autographed by his entire platoon, in thanks for the morale-boosting shoeboxes.

Oh well - too much shoebox story and not enough Denice. Suffice it to say that it would be well worth your time to get to know either one of her.

Denice Domke

Bob Collins presents (then) Denice Seals with her new

member packet.

Bet you didn’t know …

Denice is a credentialed Yoga Instructor … and also raises, trains and shows Akitas – a large dog breed certified by the AKC.




Dustin Dumars


Seeing as Treasurer is the one who handles all of the club’s money, it makes sense to at least do a cur-sory check of Dustin “Dusty” Dumars background and character. After all, he’s only been a member for 26 months. At any rate, certain basic info can be found in our Club-Runner app. So we’ll regurgitate the basics here, for your convenience.

Right away we found a very reassuring trait of our treasurer – he is a C.P.A. and has been crunching numbers and counting beans professionally for 8 years.

He and his wife Jonell live here in West Sacramento and are raising quite a family with children aged 5½, 4, 1 and one more on the way. So far, everything is copasetic. It wasn’t until our exclusive CHIPS interview with Dustin last Friday that the bombshell dropped.

When asked the very simple question of whether he had ever been in jail, our club Treasurer and holder of all our assets said, “I plead the Fifth.” What?? This could be the biggest financial scandal to hit our club since Jim “Enron Engstrom handled our club’s dough.

Of course we didn’t want to make any rash assumptions about any of Dustin’s potentially unethical dealings, but then we found out he has gone to the trouble of radically changing his appearance. (Compare his high school pho-to and his current likeness.) Is Dustin hiding from anyone?

Our sit-down interview went quite a lot better, after that.

We determined that Dustin graduated from Cal State University, San Marcos where he served as V.P. of the ac-counting club. His hobbies include golf, and playing in bands (drums and piano). His musicianship had to be part of the reason he wowed us with his ZZ Top impersonation at last year’s Anniversary Dinner.

Former member Verna Sulpizio was Dustin’s nominator to our club. A couple of his relatives and friends al-ready were Rotarians and he wanted to give back … so he joined.

Dustin says his greatest passion is raising his kids, but his greatest passion in Rotary is serving the local community with pro-grams like ‘Meals on Wheels’. He obviously has a fondness for Club Service as well, as this is his second consecutive year as our Treasurer. And Youth Services, too, as evidenced by his in-volvement in the back-pack program.

And as for whether we should be nervous about Dustin being our Treasurer? Not at all. He can’t be as bad as the folks he replaced. (Just a joke, Chris B. and Jim E.)

Dustin has somehow managed to “move” his afro as seen in his high

school ASB card, down to the bottom of his face as shown in his current,

slightly disturbing Christmas picture.



Remembering Dick Uno


When Dick Uno passed away on October 21 he left knowing that what he had done had truly made a difference in our community impacting thousands of youths, both before he joined Rotary and during his 36 years in the club.

Over the years he served in many positions in Rotary, including as our Community Service Director, Vocational Service Director and as our club President in 1988-89.

Dick was a huge advocate of education! After getting his Masters of Administration Degree at Sacramento State he served as principal at Arlington Oaks and then Westmore Oaks in West Sacramento. And his belief in education and helping local youth did not let up when he retired. Here are some of the areas where Dick continued to make an impact.

Dick headed up a special youth eyeglasses program. The club would pay for the glasses of children referred by the local school nurses who determined they weren’t eligible for other assistance, but could not afford them on their own. This was a behind the scenes program that helped 4 or 5 students every year. Dick convinced local doctors to give the exams for free and we covered the lenses and frames. Most of our own club members didn’t know much about it, but Dick’s efforts and relation-ships with school nurses and local eye doctors made a difference to dozens of students.

For decades, each month through the school year, 2 students from River City High and 2 students from Delta High would come to the club for a free lunch and to give an update about their school and about their lives. For most of the kids it was their first exposure to public speaking, something that would serve them well in the years to come. About 1,000 students have participated during his time in our club. Dick’s efforts and relationships with the school princi-pals and counselors made a difference.

Dick helped organize our annual Student Speech Contest. Some made it all the way to the District finals and he was so proud that one of our students from RCHS went on to win it all, along with $3,000 in prize money. Dick in-sisted that our contests were run properly and without bias. To this day our District leadership compliments us as the most well run Student Speech Con-test in our area. Dick’s efforts and his relationships with the school English teachers and counselors made a difference to more than 100 student speech contest participants.

Dick was a champion in encouraging our club to sponsor RCHS students each year to attend RYLA, or Rotary Youth Leadership Awards where kids learn lessons in leadership, teamwork, self confidence and trust. Most Rotary clubs only send one student per year, but Dick pushed and gained support from our club to pay for two $700 camp-erships each year. Without fail those who attended come back with stories of how the experience changed their lives. Dick’s focus on helping the kids gain these skills certainly made a difference.

I believe the Rotary program Dick was most proud was our Scholarship program. Dick coordinated with the school counselors at River City, Delta and Yolo high schools to organize the interviews of deserving HS Seniors for awards to help them continue their post high school education.

When I joined Rotary our grants were pegged at $500 for academic scholarships and $250 for Vocational awards. Dick gave generously to the West Sacramento Rotary Foundation to create a way to make a bigger impact. Today we give out 11 scholarships / year and our academic awards are now over $4,000 and the vocational awards are over $2,000. Over $30,000 per year is now granted. Over the years the program has aided more than 300 students with over $500,000 in scholarships.

Through his connections with the schools and his work within Rotary, Dick helped our local youth through our eyeglasses program, our monthly student guest speakers, our annual Speech Contest, our RYLA camp and especially our scholarship program. Dick’s life truly made a real difference in the lives of thousands. In the end, isn’t that

Dick with one of the school counselors at a

meeting in 2001



Through his connections with the schools and his work within Rotary, Dick helped our local youth through our eyeglasses program, our monthly student guest speakers, our annual Speech Contest, our RYLA camp and especially our scholarship program. Dick’s life truly made a real difference in the lives of thousands. In the end, isn’t that what we all hope for?

I’ve seen events and organizations across America use the expression “FTK”. It means, “For The Kids”, and one thing is certain …. Dick was always FTK.

I hope many of our members will be able to come to the Club Pheasant on Nov. 30, from 2-4pm, to honor and rec-ognize Dick’s life and his service above self. .





First, let’s get the basics out of the way. We were able to glean a little bit about Jacob Rabin from our Club-Runner app. In examining Jacob’s member page, your sharp-eyed cub reporter spot-ted a true rarity discovering that Jacob was born on the 4th of July, just like the title of that movie, and just like Independence Day!! A three-way coincidence? Knowing that detail helped to break the ice when we conducted the CHIPS exclusive interview.

Right out of the box I commented on the rarity of this birthdate/movie title/Independence Day trifecta, asking Jacob what he thought the odds were for such rare birthday. He replied, “Oh, probably about 1 in 365.” (CHIPS Statistical Research Dept. later confirmed his answer to be almost exactly right, at least within in the population of the USA, at 1 in 365.25.)

With our trick math question out of the way, we went straight for the inside scoop. Jacob was Born in Chica-go. He comes from a 6-generation Fresno family and came to California in time to get an education that culminat-ed in graduating from UC Davis.

Nominated by Judy Ratley, Jacob is now a 5-month member, and is very close to earning his incredibly at-tractive and powerful, permanent Blue Membership Badge. He just needs to bring a friend to a meeting to shed that butt-ugly temporary Red membership badge.

Jacob states that it was the giving spirit of our members and the idea of “Service above Self” that attracted him to Rotary.

He has already signed up for Meals on Wheels and has a great desire help serve our community, with emphasis on helping our local youth.

Now a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch, Jacob, like many of our members gives back through activities outside of Rotary as well. He is on the Advisory Board to a program at Camp Kesem for kids whose parents have cancer or have passed away from cancer.

Now for some stuff you need to know: Jacob jams on guitar and is on the trom-bone with the Davis Jazz Band. He also plays tennis twice a week and is a competi-tive Ski Cross and Giant Slalom skier.

Bottom line: Good looking young guy with a big heart, athletic ability and musi-cal skills. Plus his birthday is so unique the odds are 1 in 365.25 of it being replicated. Welcome to the club, Jacob.

Jacob Rabin



2019—2020 Rotary International President

Mark Maloney

2019—2020 Rotary District 5180 Governor

Ray Ward

2019—2020 Rotary District 5180 Assistant Governor

Megan Ham

District 5180 Rotary Clubs Meeting Times and Locations So You Can Make Up Each Week

Day Who When Where Who When Where

Mon Foothill Highlands 12:15pm Lions Gate at McClellan Park Walnut Grove 12:30pm Tony’s Place

Sacramento 12:15pm Red Lion Hotel –Woodlake Fair Oaks 6:45pm Fair Oaks Community Clubhouse

Tues

Oroville Sunrise 7:00am The Monday Club Oroville Noon The Monday Club

Rancho Cordova Sunrise 7:00am Cordova Casino Marysville 12:10pm Peachtree Country Club

West Sacramento Centennial 7:00am Collins Teen Center Loomis Sunset 5:30pm Refer to Home Page

Arden Arcade Noon Piatti Carmichael 6:30pm Ancil Hoffman Golf Course Clubhouse

Wed

Folsom Lake—Folsom Noon Empire Ranch Golf Club South Placer—Rocklin Noon Whitney Oaks Golf Club

El Dorado Hills 7:15am Community Service District Citrus Heights 12:15pm Citrus Heights City Hall

Laguna Sunrise 7:45am Valley Hi Country Club North Sacramento 12:15pm Doubletree Hotel

East Sacramento Noon Evan’s Kitchen Banquet Room Yuba City 12:15pm Hillcrest Plaza Room

Elk Grove 12:15pm Chason’s Crab Stadium Midtown Sacramento 5:30pm Café Bernardo

Thu

Historic Folsom 7:00am Folsom Veterans Hall (VFW) Lincoln Noon Lincoln Women’s Club (2nd/4th)

Roseville Sunrise 7:00am Gingers Restaurant Lincoln 6:00pm Beermann’s Restaurant (1st/3rd)

South Yuba County 7:00am Peach Tree Restaurant South Sacramento 11:30am Casa Garden Restaurant

Pocket-Greenhaven 7:30am Aviators, Executive Airport Folsom 7:00pm Rotary Clubhouse-Lew Howard Park

North Sacramento Noon Lemmon Law Office (1st) Roseville Noon Sierra View Country Club

North Sacramento 5:30pm Mama Kims (3rd) Gridley Noon Parish Hall

Rocklin-Loomis Basin 7:00am The Window Box Cafe Rotart eClub 6:00pm Next mtg February 9th

Fri

Orangevale 7:00am La Placita Restaurant Natomas 7:15am Denny’s

Point West 7:00am Doubletree Hotel Granite Bay 12:15pm Cattlemens Steakhouse

Twin Rivers 6:15pm Aviator’s Restaurant (1st and 3rd)

Stay Connected to

www.rotaryclubofwestsacramento.org

www.rotary.org

Rotary District 5180

http://www.clubrunner.ca/

portal/home.aspx?did=5180

YOUR LINKS TO ROTARY

Just Search for:

“Rotary Club of West

Sacramento”

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Rotary-Club-of-

West-Sacramento/12087025467716

tim carnahan...2020/05/21 · weekly newsletter of the mighty rotary club of west sacramento volume...

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